“MY PARTNER’S IDEA was we should move somewhere abroad and live there together,” said Dato Gabunia, a 28-year-old Georgian gay male who resides in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. “The thing is, I do not want to move anywhere. I want to live here.” Gabunia is a playwright who has been in a serious relationship with his partner for five years, but social pressure forces them to live separately and to hide their homosexuality from family members.

Post-Soviet Georgia: Bastion of Intolerance

“MY PARTNER’S IDEA was we should move somewhere abroad and live there together,” said Dato Gabunia, a 28-year-old Georgian gay male who resides in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. “The thing is, I do not want to move anywhere. I want to live here.” Gabunia is a playwright who has been in a serious relationship with his partner for five years, but social pressure forces them to live separately and to hide their homosexuality from family members.

Georgia is a post-Soviet country on Russia’s border situated in the South Caucasus.

Sign Up for The Gay & Lesbian Review’s Newsletter!

The Gay & Lesbian Review / Worldwide (The G&LR) is a bimonthly magazine targeting an educated readership of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) men and women. Under the tagline, “a bimonthly journal of history, culture, and politics,” The G&LR publishes essays in a wide range of disciplines as well as reviews of books, movies, and plays.